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A First Look At Citrix Edgesight 4.5

Tuesday, 08 May 2007 by Michel Roth

Ever since Citrix acquired Reflectant back in May 2006. I have been curious as to what Citrix was going to do with this technology. I mean, (SBC) performance monitoring is really hot these days. It soon became clear that Citrix had very big plans for Edgesight (Reflectant's main product). Finally, in September 2006 Citrix launched the first reincarnation of the Reflectant technology in the form of Citrix Edgesight 4.0. In the last couple of months or so I've been working with Citrix Edgesight and I'm kind of split up about it. It's a product that has great potential in my opinion but this potential hasn't really showed itself yet. Citrix Edgesight has improved with the coming of Service Packs (SP3 is on the way- which would make it version 4.3) but a service pack is only a service pack right?

I have to say, Citrix has been quite open in accepting the feedback (read: flame) about Citrix Edgesight 4.0/4.1/4.2 and promised to take it up in the next version. This next version is Citrix Edgesight 4.5, which of course aligns perfectly with the current release of Presentation Server. Let's take a quick look at some of the new features of Citrix Edgesight 4.5:

Health and Availability Monitoring
This improvement amounts to a "dashboard"-like view in which you can take a look at specific system- and user experience counters. It looks snappier and provides way easier access than the "start page" in Edgesight 4.0. Some screenshots:

Expanded Presentation Server Metrics
The two main improvements are the leveraging of ICA client instrumentation to collect ICA roundtrip times and more precise and more granular metrics for the logon process. Also, Edgesight 4.5 will be able to distinguish published applications in Presentation Server environments.

User-centric Reporting
Edgesight 4.5 will be able to analyze, report and diagnose issues oriented on Presentation Server users. You're probably thinking so what? It already did that. Well, you're right. It just works better now ;-).

Platform Expansion
Finally. Microsoft and Citrix have been kicking and screaming that we should go 64 bit already. Only to find that there was no 64 bit Edgesight client and no 64 bit Softgrid client. Well, Edgesight 4.5 will have a 64 bit client...(come on Sofgrid 4.2!) Oh, and Windows Vista is also supported as an endpoint client.

Integrated Licensing
One of the biggest annoyances in Citrix Edgesight 4.0 is that you need a dedicated Citrix Licensing server on the same box as the actual Edgesight server. Try explaining that to your customer. Right. So in Edgesight 4.5 you can put the licenses on your existing Citrix licensing server (although you probably need to upgrade it). Another real issue is the licensing scheme that Citrix uses in Edgesight 4.0. It basically boils down to a formula in which Citrix divides the number of Edgesight CCU licences you want to buy by 20 and that is the number of Edgesight Presentation Server Agents you get. This has some obvious drawbacks. Edgesight 4.5 does have some improvements in this area although it's not clear which will make it to the final release.

Having said all this, bear in mind this information is based on a preliminary presentation, which means that some of the mentioned features could be dropped in the final Edgesight 4.5 release.